The Libs' greatest victory

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John Howard has delivered a huge blow to the Labor Party, from which it may not be able to recover.

In 1989, John Howard was still in his 40s but his political career looked shot. Rejected by his parliamentary colleagues in the Liberal Party, ridiculed by the media, dismissed by the pollsters, Howard belonged to yesterday. Fifteen years later, he is set to become the second-longest-serving prime minister in Australian history, outdistanced only by the man all Liberals have, until now, regarded as their greatest leader, Sir Robert Menzies.

Viewed purely in personal terms, it is an extraordinary story. But as a professional odyssey, it is still more remarkable; the 2004 election result elevates Howard to Menzies' level in terms of political achievement.

Indeed, Howard's success could be greater and more important to the Liberal Party than anything Menzies achieved. After all, Menzies was blessed with the Labor Party split in 1955, only six years after he first led the Liberals into office, which guaranteed the Coalition another two terms at least.

Howard has won his fourth term without any split on the Labor side and, in fact, against a re-energised Opposition headed by a new, capable and apparently popular leader determined to strike out in a new direction.

Quite simply, this result rewrites 30 years of political analysis. It overturns many assumptions about the attitudes of Australian voters - the expectation that governments as they age inevitably suffer wear-and-tear among voters, for example - that have prevailed for a generation.

And it leaves the ALP, Australia's oldest political party, staring into the existential abyss. There is now a very large question mark hanging over the Labor Party and its viability as a genuine alternative force in national politics.

This surely is the most powerful and lasting element of Howard's triumph: a defeat of Labor that leaves it on the deck gasping for air and wondering if it will survive.

There is now a very large question mark over the Labor Party and its viability as a genuine alternative force in national politics.

The public's verdict on the ALP on Saturday was not a repudiation. The counting of votes continues but it appears that Labor secured something like 47.5 per cent of the vote. That is somewhere between a solid defeat and a landslide loss.

But Labor is severely weakened. Its vote has gone backwards in three of the past four elections. In Victoria, which had voted for the ALP at all but one election in the past quarter of a century, every Coalition seat is now considered safe, while Labor's formerly safe seats such as Holt and Melbourne Ports were on Saturday reduced to marginals.

This means that at the next election, in 2007, Labor will have to put a disproportionate amount of resources into simply holding on to its Victorian seats, while the Government can sit back and do nothing and still hold on to one-time Labor marginals such as Dunkley, held by Bruce Billson by 8.9 per cent, and Aston, held by Chris Pearce by an astonishing 12.9 per cent.

Think about that last one. In July 2001, Labor went to a byelection in Aston caused by the death of sitting Liberal Peter Nugent with a decent chance of winning. Now, Aston is safer for the Liberals than established, old-money, blue-ribbon electorates such as Kooyong and Peter Costello's seat of Higgins.

When it comes to resources, how much can Labor expect to have in the next three years and beyond? That is the vital question facing the ALP now.

It has suffered bad defeats in the past, of course. In 1966, its two-party-preferred vote was only 43.1 per cent, and in 1975 and 1977 it was around 45 per cent.

But back then, the trade unions covered half or more of the workforce. There was always institutional and financial power for Labor to fall back on. The union movement is now little more than a rump and during this coming parliamentary term, the Howard Government, with either a blocking or outright majority in the Senate, will be determined to destroy it.

Labor Party membership nationally sits at 50,000. In a population of 20 million people, this is too small a base for a party with avowedly social democratic aims.

Labor's primary vote this time of 38.2 per cent is slightly higher than the 37.8 per cent it attracted in 2001 but it is too low for a single party to have any hope of taking office.

In any event, it is misleading to refer to the primary vote as some sort of entity. It is actually a measure of the proportion of Australians who want to put a "1" next to the Labor candidate's name. The fact is, at election after election, too few Australians can bring themselves to do it. Unless it can boost its membership and re-engage more widely with the community, Labor will be reduced to a shopfront Opposition, turning up at each election to give the impression of a genuine contest when in truth it has no hope.

For the Prime Minister, Saturday provided the ultimate vindication. Labor was yesterday blaming Howard's interest rate scare, calling it the great lie. It was a distortion, and a gross one at that, especially given Howard's own past as a treasurer who presided over mass unemployment and a cash rate of 22 per cent. But a scare is only as effective as the target allows it to be, and Labor failed to confront Howard's tactic.

Howard has placed his party in a position as close to perfection as politics allows. Barring a political scandal the likes of which Australia has never seen or an economic collapse of near-Great Depression proportions, the Coalition will be insured against defeat in 2007.

Thus, Howard has an unprecedented degree of freedom to choose when to go. He could hand over to Costello a year from now, giving his successor a political leader's greatest gift, a virtual guarantee of a first-up election win. Or he could stay on for all of this term and hand the prime ministership over to Costello in 2008. It is difficult to see where the pressure would come from within the party for Howard to go, unless Costello decides to take him on.

Given the culture of the Liberal Party, this would be sure to make Costello unpopular with a fair section of the organisation, in light of the legendary status that Howard has now claimed for himself. But if Costello really wants the job before his 50th birthday, he might have to do it.

Either way, this election stands as the Liberal Party's greatest victory. No previous conservative government has so deftly and comprehensively reshaped the nation to conform to its leader's personal vision.

In the next three years, Howard can get close to completing his project. The only unknown, apart from whether Labor can recover, is if his rampant election campaign spending spree will drive up interest rates and burst what remains of the property bubble.

If it does, it will render his campaign rhetoric hollow. But from what we know of John Howard that is unlikely to disturb him. He learnt back in 1989 that the thing that mattered - the only thing - was to win. And he is undoubtedly a winner.